All natural playground

Yesterday, Dave found a shortcut to the market. He told me the path cut through what looked to be a bunch of obstacle courses for kids. So this afternoon, we went to check it out. We never made it to the market because what we found was so awesome.The playground belongs to the public school on the campus of the university. It was designed purposefully to be a natural play environment. It is rocks and trees and mounds and tunnels and plants. I would have loved this place when I was a kid!This is all a three minute walk from our front door! You can see the school in the background (the building with the orange stripe.) The mom I was talking with in the playground says it's a pretty innovative school. There are no walls (at least in the portion of the school with the 5-8 year olds.) Parents put their kids on a waiting list for admission, and the students are chosen so that the population of the school has the same proportion of races and socioeconomic classes as the surrounding community.I took Grace for a ride on the tire swings too, but didn't have enough hands to hold her and photograph her smiles - she absolutely loves swinging. The swings are surprisingly comfortable - they are like a hybrid between a standard swing and a tire swing. The best of both worlds.Sam endeavored to dig a deep hole.Like brother, like sister.Katie made a campfire.Mission accomplished.Two tunnels built into the landscape.Katie found lots of flowers to pick. She generously shared them with Isaac and Grace.I was carrying Isaac the whole time, so I have no pictures of him. Except this one, in which he is in the stroller hidden behind the swing structure. I'll make up for it tomorrow and include some good pictures of him. He is talking up a storm these days, and is very entranced by his hands, both watching them and eating them.Grace's nose is still running to beat the band. When she sees me come at her with a kleenex, I can tell she sure wishes she could run away, but she does the best she can do and twists her entire body so I can't get at her sore nose.

People are starting to ask if Grace and Isaac are twins. I expected this would come, but not this soon. They really are almost the same size, even though they are fourteen months apart.
This is a great park. We will be back another day. The mom I talked with at the playground said school gets out each day at 12:30, but parents have the option of having their kids stay at school for other activities until 3:30. So this playground will go into our afternoon repertoire.

Dave says we didn't even make it to the part of the path with the obstacle course stuff he saw. More to explore tomorrow.